


Organic Chemistry

by LavenderJam



Category: His Dark Materials (TV), His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
Genre: Adultery, Affair era, Asriel's Alloy, Bath Flirting, Cunnilingus, Daemon Touching, F/M, Get it girl, Mad Scientists in Love, Masriel being mostly nice to each other, Pre-Canon, Science Experiments, Two Men One Night, Vaginal Sex, What the semen can tell you about the man
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-20
Updated: 2020-12-20
Packaged: 2021-03-10 23:22:03
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,503
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28195371
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LavenderJam/pseuds/LavenderJam
Summary: “I want to publish with you. I want you to be my partner.”“I know that,” she snapped.He sighed, the argument marching unstoppably towards them a familiar one. “We would be formidable,” he said, pressing more soft kisses to her skin. Fresh from the bath, she smelled of clean linen and sweet oil, and he could only close his eyes and inhale until his chest could expand no more, his lungs filled to bursting with her scent.She whipped round and pushed him away. “Just stop it, won’t you?”(The closest Marisa comes to leaving Edward for Asriel.)
Relationships: Edward Coulter/Marisa Coulter, Lord Asriel/Marisa Coulter
Comments: 12
Kudos: 41





	Organic Chemistry

The workshop in the basement of Asriel’s London residence was much like the man himself: grand, chaotic and brimming with possibility. He’d shown it to Marisa the first time she’d visited October House, spiriting her down to the palatial underground laboratory before he’d even offered to take her coat, giddy with childlike glee as he bragged about his elaborate selection of philosophical toys. She’d acted aloof, of course, fingering the x-ray diffractometer as if it were a battered paperweight in a junkshop, but the monkey’s eyes had gleamed as he’d scampered up and down the workbenches, marvelling at the array of spectrometers, the sonicator, the mortar and pestle still dusted with a fine powder, the set of elegant glass thermometers lining one wall, and his wild excitement had given her away. Asriel’s gaze had been trained on the little fellow, and he couldn’t contain his grin as the dæmon took Marisa’s wrist and dragged her to the sparkling new microscope, his deft fingers already focusing the lens for her.

They’d spent many hours together in that laboratory, poring over experiments, tossing around theories and writhing around together on the wooden benches, crossing their fingers that a loose shard of glass or corrosive smear wasn’t still loitering on the countertop. It came as no surprise to Marisa, then, that that was where she found him on a warm June afternoon, bent over a workbench and swearing.

“Damn,” he grumbled, banging his fist into the table and sending flakes of dull metal flying. He glanced at the mess and his frown deepened. “Oh, for fuck’s sake.”

“Good afternoon to you too,” she said dryly, dumping her bag and coat on a stool and walking over to him.

Both Asriel and Stelmaria’s heads snapped up at the sound of her voice. He shoved his goggles up onto his head and beamed at her. “Hello,” he said brightly, tilting his cheek up for her to kiss, his fingers coated in metal dust. Stelmaria was on her hind legs, her front paws against the bench, rubbing her face against the monkey’s cheek as his hands twirled in the fur at the scruff of her neck. 

Marisa pressed her lips to Asriel’s stubble and then placed a hand on his back. “What experiment are you ruining today?”

He blew out a harsh breath. “This damn alloy is the bane of my existence.”

“Is it the same one you were blathering about last week?”

He scowled at her as she slipped on a lab coat and slotted a pair of goggles over her eyes. “I was not _blathering_. But yes, it is.”

“What’s wrong with it?” she asked, peering at the silver chips on the workbench.

“Nothing, until it leaves the vacuum furnace and is exposed to the world. Then it crumbles into _this_.” He picked up a chunk and turned it to dust between his fingers.

She tsked at him, holding his arm still at the wrist and examining his hand, noting the red welts on his fingertips. “Where are your gloves?”

“He won’t wear them,” Stelmaria said. “Trust me, I’ve tried.”

Marisa rolled her eyes as she accepted her own rubber globes from her dæmon, who’d fetched them from the drawer where Marisa always kept her things in the workshop.

“A few minor chemical burns seems a small price to pay for dexterity,” he said absentmindedly, still staring at the fragile metal flakes. He shifted over without lifting his eyes so that she could stand beside him. She frowned.

“That doesn’t look like tungsten,” she said.

“No, no, Robinson was right, the tungsten is doomed to failure. I’ve moved onto – ”

“Titanium,” she finished for him, her eyes scouring the substance on the bench. It was hard to see amongst the brittle fragments, but at the right angle, the metal had an exquisite shimmer, streaked with indigo and emerald and carmine. She leaned in closer, her mind whirring.

His lip quirked up, the start of a proud smile. “Yes, that’s right.”

“That sheen. I’ve never seen anything like it before.”

He gave her a savage grin. “Exactly. It’s going to be an extraordinary material, I’m sure of it – provided it can retain its molecular integrity at room temperature, which is a property that continues to elude me.”

“What’s your method?”

“Smelting it in the vacuum furnace,” he said, nodding to the hulking machine in the corner of the room. “With coke and a quartz flux. I was trying to get the titanium concentration right, you see, and I think I’ve done it. But as soon as it cools, it disintegrates.”

“You can melt titanium in there?” she asked, eyeing the machine.

He nodded. “Of course.”

“Even the machines we used to borrow from Trinity couldn’t reach three thousand degrees!” She stalked over to examine the furnace, tapping her fingertips over the pristine valves.

“It’s the newest model.”

“Of course it is,” she said, rolling her eyes at him. 

He ignored her. “But melting the titanium is no use to me if the alloy itself is a _powder_.”

“I presume you’ve reduced the oxygen levels as much as possible,” she murmured, her fingers skating over the metal casing.

“Of course I did,” he said. “But it’s clearly not enough. And there isn’t a better vacuum furnace I can buy.”

She looked back at the metal chips and tilted her head. “Have you tried anbarolysis?”

“Why would I do that?”

“Because you can get the oxygen levels to almost zero if you collect the crystals in solution. _Then_ you melt them in the vacuum furnace to mould it.”

He raised an eyebrow. “Now that’s an idea,” he said, and she smiled.

They set about creating a small anbarolysis cell at once, filling the ion bath with a mixed chloride solution and rigging up a titanium anode to a battery. It took a few tries for the right crystals to appear, experimenting with different concentrations of the manganese and titanium, but only an hour later, the bench now littered with flasks and pools of liquid and their hastily scrawled notes, Marisa fished the titanium rod out of the cell in triumph, iridescent metal crystals glittering on the outside. The monkey leapt to her shoulder and leaned forward, enchanted.

Asriel was beaming. “Scrape them off!” he shouted to her as he fired up the vacuum furnace, the room thrumming as the great chamber came to life. She worked as deftly as she could manage, but her gloves were blunting her fine motor control, the blade of the knife clumsy in her bulky grip. Without thinking, she shed the rubber sheaths and continued with bare hands, ignoring Stelmaria’s reproachful eyes. The monkey was still crouched beside her, peering intently at the shiny new substance.

Heat tumbled out into the room as the vacuum furnace worked its magic, and by the time the cooling process had begun both Marisa and Asriel were sweating, her impromptu chignon held in place by a blunt pencil. Their shoulders butted against each other as they rapidly noted down their method, their observations, the exact concentration of manganese chloride that had created the neat silver crystals that were cooling in the furnace, the exact mass of titanium they’d inputted to form the neat silver lump. Asriel’s pencil lead snapped as his hand flew across the page, but before he could even raise his eyes to search for another, the monkey had passed a fresh implement to him, the point sharp and vicious. He looked the dæmon straight in the eye. “Thank you,” he said, and then returned to his notebook.

By the time the furnace had cooled down enough for the new alloy to be removed, the air in the workshop was thick with the smell of sweat and hot metal and iodoform. Asriel had rolled up his sleeves and undone the top buttons of his shirt, while Marisa was fanning herself with loose paper as she peered through the glass window. “Does it look different to your last attempt?”

Asriel wrapped an arm around her as he considered the chunk of metal through the hazy glass. His scent filled her nose: musk and sawdust and the fresh pine of the outdoors. “It’s smoother, and more lustrous.” He kissed her temple. “It looks good.”

The sound of a valve releasing disturbed them, the puff of air the signal that the process was complete. Asriel’s eyes were shining as he fetched his tongs and opened the hatch, then transported the lump of gleaming metal to the tray on the bench. As he carried it across the room, the alloy caught the light, and Marisa could see the same rainbow tarnish that she’d noted on the previous chips. She hurried behind him and shoved him out of the way as soon as he’d placed the metal on the worktop, grabbing a pair of magnifying loupes as she did so. She studied their new creation, ignoring the feel of his hands on her hips as he peered over her shoulder and squinted at the alloy. As she tested the material, dropping it, scraping it, scrutinising its dints, she was oblivious to the beam on Asriel’s face. “It’s definitely more robust,” she murmured, as she examined the metal with a fine blade. “And it feels more ductile too, more malleable.” She dropped the sharp tool and took a pair of tongs from her dæmon, squeezing the metal until it compressed. “And of course – it’s still solid.” She dropped the loupes onto the counter and span around in his arms. “A job well done, wouldn’t you say?”

Asriel placed his palms on her cheeks, his eyes dark with desire. He swept his grubby thumb across her face and licked his lips. “I adore you,” he said, and then mashed his mouth against hers.

They kissed against the counter in the hot room, Asriel’s hands carding through her hair, his hips grinding against hers until the bench skidded backwards. “Careful,” she said, whipping round to make sure the chunk of alloy was intact.

He slotted his chin onto her shoulder and wrapped his arms around her as they stared at the substance. “It’s perfect, Marisa.”

“You don’t know that yet. It’s such a small piece. You’ll need to make more to be sure.”

“But we _can_ simply make more. We have the method now. I’ll need to order bigger anodes, of course, but the process is clear. Thanks to you.” He kissed her neck. “You’re so brilliant, my love.”

Stelmaria had the monkey nestled in her warm embrace, and Marisa felt a wave of pleasure roll through her as the snow leopard’s claws drew patterns in his fur. “Am I?” she purred, reaching up behind her and running a hand through his hair.

He chuckled against her skin. “Demonstrably.”

His hand meandered across her abdomen until it found the tie of her wrap dress beneath her white coat. Before he could loosen the binding, however, she’d grasped his wrist with a grimace. “Your _fingernails_ ,” she said. “They’re disgusting.”

He rolled his eyes. “As if you’re faring much better. Experimental theology is dirty work, you know.”

She wriggled out from his hold and examined herself in the dusty mirror, noting the grey smears on her face, the sweat cresting her brow, her flushed cheeks in the heat. She swiped her thumb across the grimy smudge and wrinkled her nose. “We need to wash,” she said. “We’re filthy.”

He gave her a lascivious smile. “That’s how I like you,” he said, but he let himself be dragged towards the door regardless.

They placed the new alloy safely in a case and then headed upstairs to Asriel’s bathroom, the monkey riding on Stelmaria’s back like a king. The water thudded into the porcelain tub as Marisa scrubbed her nails in the sink, fishing out as much of the muck as possible, the suds running grey as the metal dust sloughed off her hands and down the drain. She frowned at the tackiness of her palms. “Every time we work with metal my hands get so dry,” she muttered, wiping her damp skin on the small towel by the sink.

“Here,” Asriel said, as he fetched a glass tub from the cupboard and passed it to her, his rank shirt already discarded on the floor.

She turned the pot of moisturiser over in her hands. “Did I – did I leave this here?” she asked.

“I had Thorold buy it for you. I do hear you when you complain, you know,” he said, shucking off his trousers and climbing into the steaming water. She untied her dress and joined him, sighing as the bathwater engulfed her. She began to drag the flannel over her skin, rubbing off the grime of the lab with each swipe. Asriel grabbed a cup and doused his hair, his muscles flexing as he lathered soap into his mane. The droplets that slid down his chest looked like pewter charms.

“I don’t know how you stand it,” she said, watching him soap his underarms.

“What?”

“Being so at one with the dirt.”

He laughed. “I have more important things to do than worry about personal hygiene.”

“Yes, I’d noticed.” He gave his hands a cursory scrub and then dropped the flannel in the water. She tutted at him and grabbed his fingers, using the cloth to rinse the grunge from beneath his nails.

As she continued to scour his cuticles, Asriel slid his foot along the bottom of the bath and began to nudge her folds, the pad of his toe pressing against her entrance. The look she gave him was deeply disparaging, and he grinned.

Once she deemed his hands suitably cleansed, she lay back against the porcelain, sighing as the steam filled her nostrils. Asriel picked up her foot and began to knead her arches with his knuckles, pressing a kiss to her toes as she moaned.

“Using anbarolysis really was inspired,” he said, rubbing his thumb against the sinews of her foot. “However did you think of that?”

She shrugged. “I had trouble with a zirconium practical in my second year,” she said. “The only thing that even vaguely addressed the problem was near-eliminating the oxygen with an ion bath. Stood to reason that it might help here.”

“Excellent. Truly excellent.” He picked up the other foot and continued to massage her. “This is just the beginning, Marisa, I tell you. I don’t know exactly what the alloy will do yet, but it will be extraordinary, I am sure of it. It will be like nothing the world has ever seen.”

She pulled her foot from his hands. “The world will see it, then?”

“Eventually.”

“Will you publish the method in the meantime?”

Her tension became clear to him, and he sighed. “I don’t know. It’s not clear yet what will be most advantageous.” She was staring at the water now, swirling her fingers in the suds. He leaned forward and clasped her hands in his. “If it is published, we should do so together. You know that’s what I want.”

She snatched her hands back from him. “And _you_ know that’s impossible,” she said, exiting the tub so sharply that water sloshed onto the floor.

“Marisa,” he called out, but she’d already swiped a towel from the rack and stalked into the adjoining bedroom. He leapt to his feet and followed her.

He stopped at the sight of her drying herself, one foot planted on the plush rug, the other resting atop the duvet so that she could run the towel up and down her smooth calf. Sunbeams were filtering through the window and spattering her with light, the dust particles glittering gold around her as she ran the cloth sheet over her bare body, her skin milky and soft and inviting. He felt a frisson in his chest.

“My love,” he said, standing beside her and planting a kiss on her shoulder, his towel wrapped loosely around his waist.

“It’s fine,” she said tightly, switching her pose and drying her other leg. He plucked the cloth from her hands and wrapped it around her like a cape, letting the drops on her back soak into the material.

“I want to publish with you. I want you to be my partner.”

“I know that,” she snapped.

He sighed, the argument marching unstoppably towards them a familiar one. “We would be formidable,” he said, pressing more soft kisses to her skin. Fresh from the bath, she smelled of clean linen and sweet oil, and he could only close his eyes and inhale until his chest could expand no more, his lungs filled to bursting with her scent.

She whipped round and pushed him away. “Just stop it, won’t you?”

“Why should I? It’s the truth, Marisa. We both know it. I can’t pretend otherwise. I won’t.”

She scowled at him. “Yes, I’m sure it’s very difficult for you, me solving your problems with no way to receive any credit for it.”

He clenched his jaw. “Don’t you dare. Don’t you _dare_ , Marisa. It is _you_ who insists we continue this farce. It is _you_ who ensures that your contributions go unrecognised.”

The glare she sent his way might have unsettled him, if he hadn’t seen and defused it a hundred times before. “You bastard,” she said, shaking off the towel and stalking back towards the bathroom.

He leapt up after her and grabbed her hand. As she spun back towards him, the pencil still holding her hairstyle together came loose and her hair tumbled to her shoulders, the smell of burnt metal filling the air around them. Her face fell. “Oh, no,” she said, running her hand through her tangled curls. “I can’t go home smelling like this place. I hoped the bath would clear it…”

He tightened his grip on her fingers. “Don’t go home, then,” he said, exasperated.

“Asriel, I can’t do that – ”

“You _can_ ,” he said, grabbing her shoulders as if to shake her. “My love, open your mind!”

“Open your _eyes_ , Asriel,” she shot back.

“Every part of me is open to you, to us. It is you who won’t step into the light and _see_.” She tried to pull away but he wrapped his arms around her and clasped her to his chest. “Everything we create together is extraordinary. It is a crime to rob the world of that. A _crime_.”

She was as rigid as a wooden board in his arms, but she’d stopped trying to flee. He nuzzled the top of her head with his nose, enjoying the metallic wafts of ingenuity emanating from her crown. “Think of what we did today,” he said, leading her to the bed and laying her down on the mattress. “Think of what _you_ did. What you could do. Stifling genius is a wicked injustice.”

She let out a quiet hum, her eyes watching their dæmons interlace on the floor as he climbed on top of her and kissed her breasts, her neck, her cheeks, his hips grinding against hers as he stiffened. He was being tender, his touch featherlight as his fingers stroked her hip. She slid her hands into his hair and tugged, cracking a smile as Stelmaria growled from the floor.

Typically, Asriel would rise to the occasion, returning her initial attack with a bite or a tweaked nipple or a scratch down her back. But today, he gave a great sigh and shot her a glare, and then continued his tender caresses unperturbed. Marisa felt herself start to moisten as his erection rubbed against her, a shiver running through her torso as his hand stroked her soft skin. He captured her lips with his and she bit his tongue with glee.

He pulled back and stared down at her, irritation splayed across his face. “Just let me love you,” he said, his voice rough and sharp, and the remark was so unexpected that she blinked.

He manoeuvred himself to her side without waiting for a response, slipping an arm beneath her neck and crushing her to his chest as his other hand meandered down to her cunt. He slipped two fingers inside her and began to stroke her, his lips still pressing wet kisses to her forehead.

She felt disorientated, perhaps drunk, the feeling of warmth spreading through her abdomen unnerving as much as it was pleasurable, a knot settling in her stomach alongside the blooming arousal, the anticipation of orgasm superseded by the fear that the emotion he was bestowing on her needed to be contained at once. But as her hips started to judder and Asriel entwined his tongue with hers, adoration seeping from him to her as if their mouths were a valve and love their lifeblood, she felt the anxiety ebb and a more distressing emotion take its place, a love so incandescent she worried it might engulf her there and then. He swallowed her whimper and pumped her harder.

She tried to shake off the sense of being cracked open before him, rolling to her side and kissing him hungrily, wrapping her leg around his hip and pulling him to her, giving him no choice but to withdraw his fingers lest his wrist snap. She dug her heel into his backside and bit his lower lip, goading him, pushing him, willing him to fight back. The monkey was tussling with Stelmaria, wrenching her ears, nipping her haunches, but the snow leopard didn’t waver or retaliate: she merely accepted his provocations with a stoic grace and then nudged him back to the ground, pressing a gentle paw against his chest and licking his fur until he had no choice but to relent.

Marisa felt her dæmon acquiesce and shot him a look of disappointment, but he was too busy being fawned over to notice. Asriel had extricated himself from her grip and was now kissing down her body, pausing briefly to swill his tongue around her nipples and the neat depression of her navel before settling between her legs.

He slipped the same two fingers back inside her and began to lave against her, nuzzling her sex, and she was almost embarrassed by how little time passed before she was moaning and writhing on the bed. His rhythm was exquisite, the gentle lap of his tongue perfectly matched with the thrust of his fingers, and the reminder of just how well he knew her body, each patch of skin terrain he’d traversed and mapped and examined a thousand times before, and just how dotingly he was using that knowledge to soak her in pleasure made her muscles finally melt. Asriel felt the tension flow out of her body and smiled into her vulva.

Marisa blew out slow breaths, a spring coiling in her stomach until she was gasping, one hand gripping the headboard and the other grasping at her breast. He began to lick her more insistently, his fingers massaging her walls with a determined tempo, and she slipped her hand down her body and towards his head, her nails itching to dig into his skull.

He grabbed her fingers before she could tangle them in his hair, however, and forced their intertwined hands to fall to her pubis. “Asriel,” she gasped, and he squeezed her fingers tighter as he applied more pressure with his tongue, and then just as the tension inside her became unbearable it released, the spring shooting from her abdomen to her heart, her orgasm hard and loud and overwhelming as he drew every quiver of pleasure from her body and basked in it.

She was still twitching when he settled himself between her legs and eased himself into her, the sensation of their bodies melding together enough to make her cry out. He smiled as he began a lazy rhythm, groaning above her, one hand clasping her backside to him so that he could fuck her harder and deeper. His pelvis was rubbing against her and she was juddering in his arms, panting and squealing, each thrust causing to her jolt like she’d been shocked with anbaricity. It wasn’t long until his climax overwhelmed him and he let out a deep, low moan as he came, his eyes closed, his forehead pressed against hers, his hips jerking erratically as he emptied himself inside her.

Minutes passed as they rasped in each other’s arms. Marisa lay beneath him, encased by his body, his cock still buried in her sex, and stared at him as he dotted soft kisses across her collarbone. “What would it be like?” she found herself whispering.

“What?” he panted.

“Our life together.”

His eyes softened. “My love,” he said, “it would be whatever we desired. It could be anything.”

She swallowed. “Tell me about it.”

The words that fell from his lips were bewitching, promises of voyages to the far north, to other continents, travels through Europe and Africa and the Indies. He spoke of experimental theology, their work, their names side by side on every paper they published. He crowed about her magnificent mind and the phenomena they would elucidate together, the mysteries of the world no match for their formidable intellect, their partnership frothing with enough power to tear the universe apart and put it back together again. Her eyes filled with tears as the sweetness dripped from his mouth like honey, her lover pausing only to seize her lips in a passionate kiss, and she was so lost in his gorgeous lies that she didn’t notice the clock marching steadily forward, the summer sun sliding towards the horizon as the ebony hands ticked around the dial.

It was the monkey who first noticed the time, his eyes glancing at the clock as he dozed in Stelmaria’s soft embrace. Marisa was still lying in Asriel’s arms on the bed, his fanciful tales a web designed to ensnare her, and it was working like a charm, her eyes wet and wide as he built a life for them that almost had her trembling with raw, pulsing want, the muscles of her neck straining as she suppressed the violent nod of acceptance that she was desperate to give him. Her dæmon’s screech jerked the whole troupe from their daze, Stelmaria’s eyes snapping open and Marisa and Asriel rolling over in unison to survey the wretched fellow.

“The _time_ ,” he said, and Marisa gasped.

She leapt from Asriel’s arms and hurtled into the bathroom to fetch her clothes, dressing haphazardly as her dæmon chittered on the counter. “You _idiot_ ,” she snapped. “You should have been paying attention.”

Asriel appeared in the doorway just as she barked at her dæmon, his lithe, muscular form gleaming in the warm light of golden hour. He placed his hand on the monkey’s back and stroked his fur, ignoring Marisa’s continued barbs. The dæmon leapt into his arms and clung to him, wrapping his flaming arms around Asriel’s neck as if he was a child desperate to be soothed.

“So that’s it?” Asriel asked, his hand caressing the monkey. “You’re still leaving.”

Marisa gave him a wretched look. “I am not going to blow up my marriage on a _whim_.”

“A _whim?”_ he replied, incredulous. “We have lain together hundreds of time. Spent countless days together. _Years_ have passed since we first met. Your dæmon is calmer in my hands than yours, for god’s sake!”

The golden monkey nestled more deeply into Asriel’s bare chest, a silent show of agreement. He tightened his hold on the creature. “We are supposed to be together. Do you not think so?”

Her eyes were watering. “Asriel, please – ”

“Tell me. Tell me you disagree.”

“You know that I can’t,” she said, her voice ragged. Stelmaria padded over and nuzzled her head against Marisa’s hand, the feel of her powerful, solid skull beneath Marisa’s fingers deeply reassuring, much like it was to Asriel when he felt distressed.

“Then what else is there to say?”

She kissed him, Stelmaria’s tail lashing against her calves, the monkey trapped between them as their lips met. She stroked his cheeks, a sheen in her eyes. “My love, you have my heart.”

He sighed. “What good is that if I don’t have you?”

Her dæmon remained in his arms as they shuffled morosely through the house and to the door. Asriel lowered the monkey to the ground and delivered him to Stelmaria, the snow leopard clutching him to her breast with a sigh. Then he stepped forward and kissed Marisa’s forehead. “There is a life here for you, Marisa. A magnificent life.” 

She said nothing, but she wrapped her arms around him and squeezed, continuing the embrace for longer than she should have done. Then she pressed her lips to his warm neck one more time before fleeing from the door, her monkey hanging back and staring at Stelmaria in the doorway for long enough that Marisa felt a sear in her chest. “Come on,” she hissed, and he slunk after her, his tail dragging along the pavement as Marisa flagged down a cab and climbed inside.

She made it home just after sunset and breathed a sigh of relief that the house was still dark. She headed straight to the bedroom, spraying her traitorous hair with perfume to mask the metallic odour of their experiments, and dropping her dress into the washing hamper after she’d doused it in the same scent. She was about to fill the bath when she heard the door close downstairs, and she shot her dæmon a nervous look as she reached for her silk robe instead. She could feel Asriel’s semen encrusted on the delicate skin of her inner thighs, but she didn’t even have time to wipe herself clean with a flannel before her husband had entered the bedroom.

“Darling,” he said, giving her a lazy smile, his steps clumsy as he prowled over to her and planted a kiss on her cheek, the faint aroma of liquor perfusing the air. He wrinkled his nose. “My, that perfume is pungent, isn’t it? You aren’t supposed to bathe in it, you know.”

“I slipped with the dropper,” she said, watching as Edward’s fox-dæmon greeted her monkey. She could feel her dæmon’s reticence, but a lifetime of strategic subterfuge had inured them both to the lure of their base feelings, and she turned her eyes back to her husband once her dæmon had rubbed his face in the fox’s auburn fur.

She forced herself to smile sweetly. “How was your council meeting?”

“Oh, long and convoluted, as always,” he drawled, loosening his tie and unbuttoning his shirt. “At least they serve dinner when we have to go on so late.”

“And drinks,” she added tartly. Edward ignored her, walking instead to the bathroom and turning on the taps.

As she watched her husband prepare for bed, the golden monkey climbed to her shoulder and buried his face in her fragrant curls, Edward’s fox narrowing her eyes as she was left alone on the carpet. Marisa expected her dæmon to whisper in her ear, but he merely trembled against her, and his tiny, quaking form was enough for her to grasp the depth of his melancholy.

Her heart began to pound as the memory of Asriel’s words filled her ears, his beautiful, cruel tales of the life they’d share, beholden to no one and nothing outside of each other and their boundless ambition. She’d spent years shutting him down, ignoring his childish dreams of a real partnership between them, certain that the version of her life that saw her exploring and publishing and living beside him was as reckless and fantastical as every other idea that fell from his mouth with no concern for its consequences. But she’d let him build another world with his words today, painting a picture of heaven with the effortless charm that always dripped from his sweet lips, and suddenly that future didn’t feel so fantastical anymore. What felt impossible right now was this life in this house with this man, every moment with him a pale imitation of the love she should be sharing with another, every wisp of her future a throttled version of the freedom she and Asriel would have as they blew the world to smithereens in relentless pursuit of the unknown.

Her dæmon felt her breathing quicken, her thoughts seeping from her mind to his, and as she truly imagined destroying her marriage and starting a bold, brash, sinful new existence with Asriel, he tugged on her curls. “ _Please_ ,” he whispered to her, his voice rough and ragged.

Edward returned to the bedroom not a minute later, shirtless, his teeth gleaming, and before he could unbuckle his belt Marisa had slipped into his arms and started to kiss him ferociously.

He was still for a moment, clearly surprised, but as Marisa let her robe fall to the ground his hands found their bearings on her backside and he grinned against her lips as she pulled him towards the bed. She sat down on the edge of the mattress and Edward tried to mount her, but she forced him to his knees and rested the ball of her foot on his chest until he sat back and took her in. She spread her legs and lay back, slipping her calves onto his shoulders, urging his mouth to her sex.

His reticence was unsurprising, but she hooked her ankles around his neck and knotted her hands in his neat hair. “Taste me, my love,” she said, and after another beat he did, his lips pressing against her thighs before they found their way to her slick folds.

Her heart was racing as she lay there, his tongue probing her, her thighs glistening as his saliva mixed with the salty substance crusted on her skin. _Taste him_ , she thought. _Taste him on me, in me. Swallow his seed and catch me, I fucking dare you._

Edward was moaning against her, his tongue lapping her moisture appreciatively, and Marisa’s stomach clenched, though from arousal or anxiety she couldn’t decide, her core one hulking, trembling knot of anticipation as she flirted with obscene destruction. Edward was licking her intensely now, his tongue sweeping over her cunt, his moans low and deep as he devoured her. He began to rub his muzzle against her inner thighs again, his lips skating over the smears of saliva he’d printed there before, and then he stopped suddenly, staring at her skin, and snapped his neck up and looked her straight in the eye.

Faced with Edward’s confusion, the bleak alternatives to Asriel’s glittering future barrelled through her brain like a lethal infection. She imagined the scorn in the press, the rumours, the gossip. Spending her life running from the Magisterium, dogged by taunts of heretic. She’d be entirely at Asriel’s mercy, no choice but to put her faith in a man whose scorching attention could be cruelly pulled away at the click of his fingers, leaving her destitute and alone and sullied. The mere thought of grovelling before the same people she currently held in the palm of her hand made her chest flush, and the only thing that would stand between her and perpetual degradation would be Asriel, a man who forgot everyone and everything as soon they ceased to be interesting to him. She stared at Edward, their eyes locked together, their breaths harsh and quick, and then her stomach knotted like she was trapped in an inexorable vice, squeezing her so tightly she could hardly breathe.

Edward tilted his head, perplexed. “Marisa, what – ”

She lunged for her husband and pulled him on top of her, unbuckling his belt and shoving off his slacks in a frenzy, kissing him hungrily, rolling him onto his back and climbing atop him. He was hard already, and she pinned his arms above his head and peppered his neck with kisses and licks and nips as she fucked him unremittingly, tearing moans and whimpers from his throat as she shot pleasure through him until his mind surely had no choice but to go blank. He quivered beneath her, pathetic and gasping, until he came inside her with such force that it was unclear whether he was spasming from extreme pleasure or brutal pain. She continued rocking on him for as long as they both could bear, milking every ounce from him until he was utterly spent. Then she collapsed in his arms and let him hold her, his thin lips pressing grateful kisses to her damp forehead.

“My sweet,” he murmured. “I – ”

She quietened him with a rough kiss. “I know, Edward,” she said, skating her nails gently over his torso to soothe him. Edward’s eyes were fluttering closed in minutes and once she’d guided him beneath the covers and turned out the light, she lay shivering in the darkness, her cunt swollen and twitching, wetness seeping from the gash between her legs onto their crisp sheets.

As her husband snored quietly beside her, Marisa reached down and jammed two fingers inside herself, coating her digits in the hot, viscous fluid. Then she brought them to her mouth and sucked.

The mingled taste of the two men was a battle of wills on her tongue. She knew Asriel’s taste intimately, the bitter musk a familiar note for her tastebuds, no doubt the result of his ceaseless steaks and whiskeys and cigars. But despite his tendency to outdo everything around him, even in this, she recognised the sweeter, lighter flavour too, the palatable tang of a man who managed his vices, turning down cigarettes and dark spirits in favour of jenniver and clean air, who feasted on citrus fruits and fresh leaves and herbs, a diet of sophistication and control and impressive restraint. It was the taste of a man with an iron grip on himself wrestling with one who had an iron grip on the world, and as Marisa lapped their semen from her fingers, it was Asriel’s taste that flooded her tongue most strongly, but the bitter bouquet almost made her choke. Her eyes pricked with tears as she went back for more, scraping her aggravated entrance as she coated her fingers again and returned them to her lips.

Her dæmon leapt to the bed, padding sorrowfully up the duvet and nestling into her breast as her eyes glistened in the darkness. She slid her tongue lazily over her knuckles, her other hand fisting her dæmon’s fur, her heart finally calming as another taste came through, slick and fresh like clean pennies. It was a taste she knew well, that she’d been soothed by since adolescence, her own form the first subject of her ruthless fascination with the limits of the body. The other two flavours faded away as she focused on that sharp, sweet note, a taste she trusted, the taste of clarity, the rich, reliable, sumptuous taste of _her_. With that thought in her mind, she drifted off to sleep, her dæmon’s soft hand placed over her heart, their chests rising and falling as one.

**Author's Note:**

> Another smut fic that is three thousand words longer than I planned. The science at the start of this story is not totally bogus – using electrolysis to create thermally stable titanium-manganese alloys was a chemical technique patented in the 1950s, I think. Who knew that all those chemistry classes would come in useful on AO3, of all places? 
> 
> Let me know your thoughts on the science, the sex, how much you call tell about the man from his semen, you know, normal things like that…


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